


Take Only As Directed

by thewaythatwerust



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Established Relationship, Fade to Black, Fluff, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mystery, Sick Steve Rogers, Stark Tech is the best tech, Stony - Freeform, TONY STARK IS A DRAMA QUEEN, What happened to Steve? Can Tony fix it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22015364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewaythatwerust/pseuds/thewaythatwerust
Summary: “What the actual fuck, Rogers? Where--” Tony gestures to Steve’s now very small body lying on the workshop couch, “--is the rest of you?”..Or the one wherein Steve is de-serumed, Tony has a meltdown, and it is important to read labels.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 168
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2019





	Take Only As Directed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [march_hyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/march_hyde/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [march_hyde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/march_hyde/pseuds/march_hyde) in the [stony_stocking_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2019) collection. 



> For _anna_ who wanted _tony taking care of deserumed steve, who is sick and tony just panics cuz he doesnt know what to do._  
>  This may have gone off the rails a little, but hopefully you like it regardless!
> 
> ___  
> My first Stony fic. I lay the blame entirely at FestiveFerret's feetsies. But, since she also beta'd it for me, filled plot holes deep enough to lose Stark Tower in, gave me cutting edge tech and an ending... I guess we're mostly even.

“What the actual fuck, Rogers? Where--” Tony gestures to Steve’s now very small body lying on the workshop couch, “--is the rest of you?”

Steve’s toothpick arms tremble alarmingly as he struggles to push himself to a sitting position. He sighs tiredly. “Gone back to wherever it was before it became the rest of me in the first place, I suppose.” He rubs his eyes, blearily.

Tony shifts his weight on anxious feet, trying, but failing, to accept that the small figure drowning in a sea of blankets is, in fact, Steve Rogers, and not some dial-a-twink skilled in impersonations, called in by Barton just to mess with his mind. _Oh_. Seizing the thread of denial with two hands and pulling desperately, Tony’s eyes narrow.

“If you really are _you_ , you’ll be able to tell me something only _you_ know.”

Steve clears his throat --a rough, uncomfortable sound-- and rubs his fingers over his neck. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

Tony scratches his chin, considering. Steve’s voice is nasally but otherwise mostly Steve-like. “That’s an opinion, not a fact, Rogers, and a commonly held one at that. I said something only _you_ would _know_.”

Steve’s answering glower loses most of its effectiveness when he sneezes, crying out in pain and reaching for his back, like the simple act of sneezing has ruptured a disc. Tony eyes the small frame in concern, realizing it’s not impossible. Hell, given the circumstances, it’s not even improbable.

Steve rolls his shoulders before pitching forward, a thin arm emerging from the blankets, reaching for a tissue. He blows his nose into it loudly before tossing it atop the small, white mountain on the table in front of the couch. Tony grimaces, silently calculating how many germs are currently crawling through Mount Kleenex.

“Fine.” Steve’s voice drags Tony’s attention back to the same-but-different face. “You were a pain in _my ass_ last night.” His smirk is at odds with his red tipped nose and glassy eyes.

Tony resolutely ignores the way his blood vessels dilate, funneling unwanted color to his cheeks. “You weren’t complaining at the time,” he grumbles. He takes two steps forward and stalls. “When did…” Tony’s mouth clamps closed, his lips twisting, resetting his words. “ _How_ did…” His mouth snaps shut again and he grinds his teeth, dismayed at the shocking lack of genius in his current line of questioning. He settles for raising his hands again, splaying his fingers and gesturing at Steve’s new-old body. “Explain.”

Steve shrugs one bony shoulder listlessly. “I don’t know, Tony. I just woke up like this.”

“And between leaving my bed and finding your way to the couch, did anything of note happen, perchance? Run into any syringe-wielding HYDRA lackeys, maybe piss off some aliens, or sign up to be a lab rat, _again_ , in some super-secret, superhuman trial?”

The corner of Steve’s lip pulls up sardonically. “Not that I recall.”

A small shiver runs through Steve’s body, making him shake like a leaf on an active fault line. He pulls the blanket more tightly around him, and Tony frowns. It’s hardly arctic in here, but what little of Steve’s skin he can see looks waxy and, _oh._ His eyes dart back to the towering tissue pile before returning to Steve.

“You’re sick?”

“Careful, Stark. People will think you’re a genius if you keep up those astounding feats of observation.”

Tony bristles. “If you could see yourself, you would give me a pass. It’s not every day I go to bed with the Hulk and wake up to Banner, and oh, that really wasn’t the best analogy. I’m not getting that out of --” Tony breaks off at the weary look on Steve’s face. He twists his hands together. “The thing is… I don’t do well with _sick_.”

The small laugh from Steve becomes a loud, wracking cough. Tony closes the distance to the couch with three large strides, perches atop the mess of blankets, and rubs Steve’s back awkwardly. He tries to ignore the unfamiliar feel of bones pressing out where there used to be endless swells of muscle. The coughing subsides but leaves a dragging wheeze in its wake.

“Are you okay?”

Steve’s eyelids fall closed, his absurd lashes fanning out over his skin: the only thing apparently not affected by the mysterious smallification. He sucks in a slow, calculating breath as he nods. “Just asthma.”

“Asthma!” Tony jolts to his feet, wincing at the high pitched note of panic ringing loud in his voice. He clears his throat. “Since when do you have asthma?”

“1918.”

“JARVIS! Scan the tower, find an inhaler! Or, uh, call Doctor Cho!” Tony’s voice is riding the edge of hysteria, but it’s an entirely valid response to the current situation, so he’s not going to get cringey about it. He twists on the spot, eyes darting around the room, wishing that Barton or Barnes, or any one of the freeloaders living in the tower, always choosing the most inopportune moment to appear, would show up when they were wanted for once. But of course, that would be expecting too much. His eyes fall back to Steve’s cheeks, the red tinge only serving to contrast how pale the rest of him is. “JARVIS, both! Do both!”

“As you wish, sir.”

In his blanket-nest, Steve is still focused intently on his carefully measured breathing, though something sounding very much like an annoyed huff reaches Tony’s ear. “Ignore him, JARVIS. I’m fine. Stop overreacting, Tony.”

“Very good, Captain Rogers.”

Tony mentally curses his traitorous AI, resolving to send a small power surge his way later. Just enough to trigger a reboot, send him to the virtual naughty corner, and give him time to think about what he’s done. “I am _not_ overreacting, this is the perfect amount of reacting. Is there anything else I should know? Any other ailments I need to prepare for?” He can feel his heartbeat picking up pace in his chest, racing his brain toward the hazy shape of a panic attack looming large in the distance.

Steve shakes his head, his eyes opening, the wheeze finally fading from his chest. He hesitates, eyes sliding from Tony’s before answering. “Nothing that should be a problem.”

Tony’s eyes narrow. “I think we’re pretty far out of the realm of _should be_ at this point. We’re taking a Magical School Bus tour through _never thought it was a possibility, yet here we are-land_ , so share with the rest of the class, would you?”

Steve presses his lips together and reaches for another tissue.

“Rogers…”

Steve coughs harshly, and something Tony does not want to think about passes from his throat to the Kleenex in his hand. He scrubs it over his lips before balling it up and tossing it onto the table, watching as the paper mountain comes tumbling down. Steve mumbles something under his breath.

“Once more, with feeling.”

Steve’s eyes snap to Tony’s, defiance pushing through exhaustion. “Surely, you read my file, Stark. I had a lot of…” He pauses, sighing and drooping visibly. “High blood pressure, heart palpitations, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever…”

Tony can feel his eyes edging wider as each new entry of _things that can kill you_ is added to the list. He's grateful when Steve trails off, _pretty sure_ there’s more to Steve’s list, but also _very sure_ his eyes are going to pop out of his head if Steve keeps going... followed in short order by some kind of massive coronary event.

Tony licks his lips nervously. “So, uh, they all sound like things that will not play well with this current flu… cold… thing you’ve got going on.” His eyes catch on his leg, bouncing up and down rapidly, like his foot is acting as a grounding wire, pulling the anxiety from his body to the floor. Good thing his body just keeps churning out more, otherwise he’d be at risk of handling the situation in a calm, confident manner. “JARVIS, contact Happy, tell him we need vitamin C, echinacea drops, Advil, ibuprofen, zinc lozenges, chicken noodle soup, apple juice, a mountain of Kleenex, and enough Purell to fill a bathtub.” Tony’s eyes sweep over the sweat-damp hair clinging to Steve’s forehead. “And can you drop the temperature in here to a suitably fever-quashing number?”

“Of course, sir. Consider it done.”

Tony feels the first wisp of cold air waft over his skin. Steve grumbles and snuggles further into his blanket. A flash of pink swipes over cracked lips.

Tony jolts into action, spinning on his heel and retreating to the refrigerator, glad he had gone with the full-sized, entirely impractical cooling device for his workshop over the tiny barely-fits-two-cheeseburgers-inside-at-the-same-time contraption Pepper had suggested. Sticking his face into the cold box, he sighs at the brief respite for his panic-filled face before grabbing a bottle of water. He pushes the door closed before returning to Steve, and pressing the water into the jumble of blankets. Small hands snake out and grasp it before twisting uselessly over the cap.

Tony blinks incredulously. “Seriously? You have ripped tree trunks in half with your bare hands and pulled a helicopter from the sky, but you can’t open a water bottle?”

Steve’s face falls, and Tony has the decency to feel a little bad. He sinks down next to Steve, takes the bottle, breaks the seal, and hands it back. Steve turns his baby blues Tony’s way, a begrudging _thanks_ half-hidden behind the unspoken _I could have done it myself_ , and Tony does a double take. Those eyes are the same. And the nose, straight but for the bump where someone had obviously taken issue with Steve’s particular brand of annoyingly righteous bastard before he became _America’s favorite_ annoyingly righteous bastard with a high nazi kill rate. And those lips… Tony flushes, watching them wrap around the mouth of the bottle, technicolor memories of them wrapping around something else last night bursting bright in his mind. He drags his eyes away, the panic-fuelled blood pulsing in his cheeks suddenly acquiring a new target.

“Tony?”

He turns back to Steve with a forced-casual, “Hmm?”

“Are you okay?” Steve’s voice is still rough despite Tony’s best rehydration efforts.

Tony shakes his head and attempts to drag his thoughts, kicking and screaming, back to family-friendly territory. This is so not the time. “I should be asking you that, Tiny Tim.” Tony presses the back of his hand to Steve’s forehead, frowning before pulling it back and wiping it against the bright yellow and red Iron Man masks printed on his pajama pants. “I’m not a doctor, though I’ve played one a few times, but given your body is running hot enough to cook my breakfast, I think we need to get you out of this blanket. Insulation is the last thing you need.”

Steve scowls and clutches tighter at his cocoon as Tony tugs on it. It isn’t a fair fight, at all, but Tony still feels a slight thrill of victory when the blanket comes away in his hands. It slips from his fingers when his eyes fall on to the naked body it had been wrapped around.

So, Steve’s lashes weren’t the only thing to survive the size purge. Tony’s eyes drop low, and his thoughts, and his blood supply, obviously thinking this is a good idea, follow suit.

Steve covers himself… mostly, and whines, “ _To-ny_.”

Tony bends quickly, retrieves the blanket and throws it back at Steve. “Yes, yeah. Right. It’s just big, I mean, we have big, uh, bigger problems then.... Huh. Sorry, what am I doing? And why do you find the current conversation so…stimulating?”

Steve pulls the fabric over himself, a little more red balancing out the greenish tint of his skin. “Ideally, you’re about to figure out what happened and come up with a genius idea to reverse it.”

“Seriously? We’re not going to talk about the elephant trunk in the room?” _Under the blanket,_ Tony corrects himself silently. Steve is almost entirely pink now, but remains silent. Tony nods and claps his hands together. “Of course we’re not! So, clearly, you did something to, uh…” His head quirks to the left, eyes narrowing on the table. “Why is Mount Kleenex reforming of its own accord?”

Steve’s gaze traces Tony’s. He frowns at the slow-moving objects in question. He pinches an animated tissue between his fingers, bringing it to eye level. Tony grimaces as Steve shakes his crumpled, white prize, expecting the worst, but when nothing untoward falls from its folds, Tony’s face relaxes.

Steve rubs his nose with his free hand. “Must have been a draught.”

Tony walks to his workbench. There’s a jumbled mix of metallic noises as determined fingers go searching through the organized chaos before he turns, triumphantly, one black nitrile glove snapping its twin against his wrist. “Want to bend over and cough, Rogers?” His eyebrows twitch up suggestively.

Steve is suddenly extremely interested in the tissue in question, but Tony thinks his cheeks look a little brighter than a moment ago. And damned if he isn’t seven shades of adorable when he blushes like that. Tony’s smile pushes higher as he comes and takes the tissue from Steve’s grasp.

“There’s nothing in it.”

“Nothing you can see.” Tony takes the germy playground to the high powered magnifier nestled amongst his other shiny toys. He slides the tissue into place, and sends the holographic display projecting toward the couch. He fiddles with the controls as he calls to Steve. “Tell me, step by step, everything you remember about last night.”

Steve pulls his knees to his chest inside his blanket bubble. “You ordered us sushi for dinner.” Steve’s nose wrinkles at the memory. “You ate mine, and then we went to your room... for dessert.”

Tony chokes on air, his hand spasming, jerking out and making the projection fritz and fill with white. His cheeks burn. He remembers exactly what Steve had eaten for dessert. He could get used to this salacious new-old Steve. Less muscle, more moxie. “Tell me what you remember _after_ you left my room,” Tony grinds out in a strangled voice.

Steve’s glassy eyes are looking the wrong side of wild - feverish, and filled with entirely too much self-satisfaction. “I couldn’t sleep. I was going to watch some television, but, uh, Bucky and Clint had already commandeered the couch for other purposes, so I came down here.” The blanket-burrito shifts up as he shrugs. “I was feeling a bit queasy from dinner, so I had some of the pink stomach stuff you’re always sipping on. I was feeling a bit warm so I stripped and crashed on the couch. And then… this.”

Tony’s head jerks toward the couch. “Pink stomach stuff? Pepto-Bismal?”

Steve nods again.

“You drank the Pepto that was on my workbench?”

Steve’s eyebrows and his shoulder lift in the universal sign of “yeah, so?”

“The Pepto that had _Do Not Drink_ scrawled across the label in permanent marker?”

Steve huffs. “I’m so sorry, Stark, that I didn’t come and wake you from your post-orgasmic stupor to ask if I could have some of your precious antacid.”

Scrubbing his hand through his hair, Tony snorts out a humorless laugh. “Steve, that wasn’t for you to drink--”

“Jesus, Tony, I will buy you some more.”

“--it was a makeshift home for my colony of nanobots.”

Steve’s anger-pinched face goes lax. He stares at Tony for a long moment before he spits out, aghast, “I drank your tech?”

Tony pinch-pulls the hologram, and the display zooms in, the view tightening, showing glittery specks now dotting the white. _Moving_ , glittery specks. “Looks like it.”

“Why the hell did you put robots in your medicine?”

“I didn’t! I had an empty bottle. Snazzy, pink, like the bots. It seemed fitting.”

Steve’s less-than-impressive-jawline clenches and he shakes his head.

“What? I think we can both agree that this was almost entirely your fault. It was on my _workbench_ . In my _workshop_ . It was _clearly labeled_.”

“It _should_ have been labeled, _'Warning: contains an asinine Stark experiment.'”_

“My gamma-targeting, epigenetic nanoswitches are not asinine. They’re cutting edge.”

“Well, should I expect the cutting edge tech to stop doing whatever it’s doing before it kills me? Or is my death certificate going to read, _'Cause of death: Tony Stark?'”_

Tony’s gut clenches painfully, but it’s too early in the crisis to take a time out to examine the unsettling mix of fear and grief that Steve’s comment has stirred up, so he shoves it down under his always-ready supply of crushing guilt and heavy denial. “I am not killing a national treasure, if only because it would land me on a murderous ex-assassin’s kill list. I need to run a few tests, but in theory, it should be reversible.”

“I thought we’re pretty far beyond _should be_ territory?”

Tony’s eyes roll at his own words being thrown back at him, his fingers tapping the air over the holographic screen, setting the parameters, and starting the diagnostics on the mucus-covered nanobots. “Maybe this will teach you not to take things that don’t belong to you, Steven.”

“Maybe it will teach you not to order bait for dinner.”

Tony smiles, his eyes flickering over the test results as they compile on the holoscreen. He moves to his computer. His fingers fly over the keyboard, reworking the bot code. “Sushi is high in Omega-3, which is essential for optimal brain function, which is how I was able to come up with G-TEN in the first place. It’s going to, eventually, be able to chomp down on Banner’s DNA and temporarily ix-nay the ulk-Hay, should the need arise. Much easier than dealing with the whole HulkBuster suit, the maintenance on that is ridiculous.” Tony picks up the Pepto-bottle, pops the cap and peers inside. A soft glow of white light rolls over the tiny pink specks: the firmware update being uploaded into their tiny circuit heads. “It turns out my itty, bitty bots like the taste of the particularly super portion of your super-soldier DNA, too. But it’s an easy fix, there’s no cause for concern.”

Steve flops back on the couch. “I would like to register some concerns.”

The flashing inside the bottle stops, and Tony carries it over to the couch and holds it out, victoriously. “Told you. Easy.”  
  
Steve struggles back to an upright position and eyes the bottle suspiciously.

“Stop being a baby. I’ve reprogrammed them. They’ll meet up with their friends, infect them with the new code, and they’ll switch to repair mode.”

The blanket falls off Steve’s shoulders, slides down his chest, and pools in his lap as he reaches out and takes the bottle. Tony’s eyes stall on the enticing arch of Steve’s neck as he swallows down a healthy dose of new nano friends, trying not to feel disappointed when he rocks forward to deposit the bottle on the table.

“So..” Tony’s eyes trace the stretch of smooth skin over Steve’s ribs, past his belly to where the blanket hides the rest of him from view. “...speaking of compiling scientific data... about the earlier display of extreme interest, should I note that down as a possible side-effect?”

Steve’s eyes drop to the blanket in his lap and bites his lip.

“You know, Rogers, it is imperative to accurately reflect all possible adverse reactions in the fact sheet,” Tony murmurs lowly.

Steve’s eyes, a little less glassy now, lift to meet Tony’s. “You know how when you get sick, you get all whiny and sulky and crave donuts?”

Tony’s lip twists at the gross oversimplification but nods slowly.

“Well, when sick, my body craves… other things.” Steve’s skin, already looking healthier --a signal the update is taking-- burns a little over still too-sharp cheekbones.

“And I never knew this, how?”

“I haven’t been sick since the serum.”

Tony folds himself down on the couch next to Steve. “Scientifically speaking, cravings indicate your system is unbalanced and requires additional ...nutrients.” He closes his fist around the blanket and pulls it from Steve’s lap to his own. Steve watches it slide away without protest. “It would be a shame to deny your body what it needs.”

Steve hums thoughtfully. “How long until your bots finish their task?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take.”

Steve pushes the blanket off Tony’s lap and takes its place. “Hmm, then you give and I’ll take. It’s the least you can do after almost killing me.”

Tony groans as Steve grinds in his lap, the lithe _before_ body piquing his interest just as effectively as its _after-serum_ counterpart. His hand wraps around familiar flesh, and the resulting noise it pulls from Steve’s throat sends throbbing pleasure spiraling south. “I will admit to being intrigued how the original flavor compares to the new two-point-oh version I’ve already had a taste of.”

“Tony?’

“Yeah?”

“You talk too much.”

Steve rocks forward again, catching his mouth. Tony moans into the kiss as slender arms encircle his neck and tug him closer. Steve tastes exactly the same, as it turns out.

Tony’s hands cup Steve’s ass, taking his weight as he stands, swallowing down the soft gasp of surprise as he carries them toward the elevator. He can spare thirty seconds of their twenty minutes to return to his room, where he can take Steve apart properly on his king-sized bed. Steve’s legs lock around Tony’s waist, grinding desperately against his belly, and Tony almost abandons his plan in exchange for taking him up against the wall of the elevator. He breaks the kiss with a gasp. “...Fuck, Steve, if you keep that up, you’re going to kill _me_.”

“Maybe that’s the plan, Stark. To take my revenge on you for turning me into a science experiment.” He rolls his hips again just as the elevator opens to Tony’s room.

Tony drops a kiss on the end of Steve’s nose as he carries him to the bed, enjoying the role reversal of being the one doing the man-handling for a change. “You were a science experiment long before I met you, Rogers.” Tony smirks at the dark look that crosses Steve’s face. “Oh, don’t be like that, or I won’t let you be my adorable little guinea pig next time I have tech in need of testing.”

Steve snorts derisively. “You really want to risk half of me disappearing again?”

Tony flops Steve down onto the mattress, and crawls over him, stopping to feel the erratic thumping under his lips as he presses a kiss to Steve’s chest. He lifts his face to stare into those familiar blue eyes: desire, trust and love shining up at him. He cups Steve’s chin and smiles softly. “Doesn’t matter, the bits of you that matter are all still here.”


End file.
